


Two Feet Standing on a Principle

by Helholden



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Suicide, Tragic Romance, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:32:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is the death of duty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Feet Standing on a Principle

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry. This is depressing. What might could happen if the show follows the historical events of Mary and her French servant, “Bastian.” Because I love to torture myself.

 

 

_i._

 

Mary smiled against his mouth right before they kissed, her hand coming around his head to thread her fingers through his dark hair.

 

They would be wed soon, and she wanted more than anything to share this with him now before that moment came. Before the vows were said, they would share this vow in private, a vow of a different language. Not of words, but of actions.

 

 _I’m yours_ , it said, as he lay her down on the bed.

 

 _And you’re mine_ , it said again, as she reached up to kiss him.

 

Sebastian made love differently than his brother. He was slow and sensual, and he took his time. Hours passed, and he collapsed above her thrice, breathing out her name like a prayer each time.

 

The light beyond the balcony windows shifted, catching the sheen of sweat on his brow, and he rolled off of her, though he pulled her to him with his arm and held her close. They lay there afterwards in each other’s arms.

 

They lay there, not knowing what tomorrow would bring.

 

 

_ii._

 

“I must marry Francis,” she said, but the words were like rocks in her throat. Her eyes were stung with tears, wet and red, but none had yet fallen.

 

“We can elope,” Sebastian suggested quickly, a panicked thought. “They’ll have no choice but to legitimize me if you marry me—”

 

“Sebastian—”

 

“Mary, we can—”

 

“ _Sebastian_.”

 

He wasn’t looking at her. Sebastian was stubbornly staring somewhere off at the corner, his jaw tight.

 

“I am a Queen,” Mary said as calmly as possible. “I have my people to think of, my country—”

 

“Will you lie with him?” Sebastian asked.

 

Mary was taken aback. “What?”

 

Sebastian looked at her this time. “Will you lie with him?”

 

Mary raised her chin. She was trying so hard to be brave. “I have no choice.”

 

Her words broke him. Calm Sebastian, who always knew how to keep his head, went through a million emotions on his face at once, and suddenly, he swung at the wooden room divider. Mary flinched as it flew against the wall, splintering the wood into two.

 

He fell to his knees, choking on his sobs.

 

She went to him to touch his shoulder, and he let her.

 

When Mary hugged him, Sebastian collapsed into her arms.

 

 

_iii._

 

He got drunk the night of the wedding. Sebastian didn’t seek out his pleasure in another woman. He tortured himself instead.

 

He attended the consummation out of sight, hidden behind a wall with cut lattice work.

 

Afterwards, there were no sobs.

 

Only tears, and clenching his fists until he felt nothing but numbness.

 

Somehow seeing it was better than not seeing it, though.

 

 

_iv._

 

The first time she came to him after the wedding, Sebastian was too rough.

 

He didn’t hurt her, but he took her in a corridor instead of a proper room, against a cold stone wall with her skirts hiked up.

 

She was afraid of being seen.

 

He was afraid of not finishing first if they happened to be seen.

 

They came together in a heap of sweat and tangled clothes, and he prayed if she got pregnant, she wouldn’t know who the father was.

 

Mary never got pregnant, though.

 

 

_v._

 

They carried on an affair while she was married to Francis, but the day he died, Sebastian took her in Francis’s bed with a wild passion, and she imagined it was some kind of retribution for what he had gone through during their marriage.

 

They fled France nine months later, and he followed her back to Scotland.

 

For a short time, they carried on as if Francis was no longer there between them, but the memory was always sharp, and they were never truly alone in the way they had been before her marriage to his brother.

 

Sebastian still loved her, though.

 

When Mary looked at him and smiled brightly, he knew she still loved him, too.

 

They just weren’t children anymore.

 

 

_vi._

 

When she had to marry again, her cousin of all people, Sebastian felt the blade in his throat. He did not protest this time. He was quiet, letting her explain.

 

He, in the eyes of everyone else, was just her trusted servant.

 

Not her lover, not her deepest friend.

 

He bowed his head before he looked back up. He knew he didn’t have a choice. Loving Mary meant sharing Mary, for she was of royal blood and he was not, and he could never marry her and claim her as his and only his.

 

She would always be someone else’s first, and his second.

 

But being second, Sebastian thought, was better than being nothing.

 

 

_vii._

 

When Sebastian brought Christine around, Mary had thought at first they were just friends. Sebastian and Christine talked with one another and enjoyed each other’s company, but there was no passion between them. Mary thought nothing of it at first.

 

Until Sebastian came to her one day, asking permission to marry Christine.

 

Mary dropped her pen, her hand coming up to her heart.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

When she looked up at Sebastian, he had a straight face. He gritted his jaw. “I am asking your permission to marry, Your Grace.”

 

He never called her _your grace_ in private. This was new.

 

“Bash . . . ”

 

“Do you not give your blessing?”

 

Mary stood up all of a sudden. “Why?” she asked, speaking too quickly. “Why do you want to marry this girl?”

 

“Marriage is a normal part of life,” Sebastian replied, meeting her gaze. “I cannot be seen as a deviant in these chaotic times.”

 

Mary approached him, feeling her nerves shake. “Am I not enough?”

 

His gaze seemed to soften. “Am I not?” he asked so quietly.

 

“Bash, that’s different,” Mary protested. “I don’t _love_ him—”

 

“I don’t love her,” Sebastian replied, “but she would be a good woman, a good wife, and she would bear children.”

 

Mary’s heart was breaking. There were tears in her eyes. All of this time, she had to share her body, but she never wanted to, and now Sebastian wanted to share himself with someone else, and Mary could not accept it.

 

“Please, Bash—”

 

Sebastian closed his eyes. “I’m not doing this to hurt you, Mary.”

 

“Then _why_ —”

 

“Because I must not be seen as the unwed chamber valet of the Queen of _Scotland_!” Sebastian argued, making a fine point. “Either sooner of later, someone will suspect I am sharing your bed or they will suspect me of buggery, and then what, Mary? What then, for us? There will _be_ no us.”

 

“But do you still _love_ me?” Mary asked, her voice shaking.

 

The façade of strength broke, and he closed the distance between them, grasping her hand in both of his. “Yes, Mary,” he said with a rush of honesty and passion, looking right into her eyes. His hand came up to touch the side of her face like he did when they were younger, but there were lines on his face now. “I will always love you,” Sebastian told her firmly, gripping her hand.

 

They made love that evening in her study.

 

Mary gave her blessing three days later.

 

 

_viii._

 

The abuse steadily grew worse until Mary ran to Sebastian one day, heaving and crying, telling him she couldn’t take it anymore. There were bruises on her, but they were hidden beneath her gown where normal eyes wouldn’t see. Sebastian saw.

 

She begged him to do something about it, and Sebastian planned the whole thing right around his wedding night to Christine. His friend Charles helped him, but the dirty work was all done by Sebastian’s hand. Lord Darnley was dead by the morning, and the real work came afterwards.

 

He had to ride out to various lords and diplomats, delivering letters to secure Mary’s safety. Eventually, everything was settled and done.

 

He had always promised he would kill for Mary.

 

It was a promise he never broke.

 

 

_ix._

 

Her third husband was a monster, and Sebastian made sure the man never saw the light of day again. Mary had known the man for no more than one month, but it was one month too long.

 

Mary had cried into Sebastian’s arms many nights, and he forsook his wife’s bed for hers. He spent most nights comforting Mary rather than making love to her. When Mary was well again and the scars had faded, she allowed his touches to go further again, and they shared in what they had once had yet again.

 

A year later, though, she was imprisoned and her son was taken from her—a son whose father Mary didn’t even know, though everyone believed he belonged to Lord Darnley. Mary had shared bed with Sebastian during that time, though.

 

But the boy was gone, and so was Mary.

 

And the whole world changed.

 

 

_x._

 

Those last years were the hardest. Escaping imprisonment, only to be taken once more. He broke her free once, but each time, they always managed to catch Mary again.

 

The English wanted her dead, and she was set to be beheaded for treason.

 

Sebastian was not there. He could not be there. He cried, and they all thought he cried for his queen, not for his lover, his friend, his life. When they took off her head, all Sebastian had left was his wife and his children. He loved his children, of course. They were his children, and in a way, he loved his wife.

 

She was never Mary, though.

 

Sebastian had served Mary. He had loved Mary. Mary had a duty to her country, though, and duty came before love. Love was for the shadows, for the nights, for secrets and deceptions, until they could barely be distinguished from the innocent youths they once were.

 

Love had never come first.

 

When his daughters were secure and his wife fell grievously ill and passed away, Sebastian traveled to Fotheringay Castle. It was the place where Mary had been imprisoned and executed, the place where she had spent her last days on this earth.

 

He looked up at the skies, at the green world around him, and said his prayers as tears fell from his eyes. He drew his dagger from his belt and, with both hands, placed the point against his heart.

 

Sebastian had done many things in his life for duty.

 

But this final act, he would do for love.

 

 


End file.
